What to Do Before You Move into Your New Home

What to Do Before You Move into Your New Home

Did you recently purchase your new home? If you did, or if you are about to make this big purchase, congratulations!

It's an exciting time as well as a potentially stressful time. You can eliminate potential stressors right away by doing a few things you might not have thought of before you move in.

Many of the following tips are great things for any homeowner to do no matter how long you've lived in your house!

Have Your New Home Professionally Inspected

It pays to do your homework for a professional inspector you can trust. Your real estate agent may have recommended an inspector to you. More than likely, that inspector will be able to catch any big problems before your move.

However, home inspectors can't always detect pests or issues that were hidden by the previous owner's furniture. It may be worth it to get a second inspection for your benefit before unpacking your belongings.

Clean Your Gutters and Chimneys

You should already have a good idea of the state of your gutters and chimneys, but that doesn't automatically mean they're clean and in working order!

Roof and gutter cleaning is #1 for maintaining the integrity of your roof and house. In addition, if you want to use your new fireplace and chimney, make sure it's in working order.

Have Your HVAC System Cleaned

This task often gets overlooked, but pet hair and dust can clog your HVAC system and contribute to allergies in a new home. It's not very expensive to have your ducts cleaned, have the filter on your furnace change, and make sure everything in your HVAC system is in working order.

Have Your Floors Professionally Cleaned

Nothing is more annoying than moving all your furniture into your new bedrooms and then realizing you needed to have the carpets steam-cleaned. The previous owners probably didn't do this. You want the carpet cleaned of other people's dirt before you move in.

Check Your Water Quality

You might never have thought of this one but bad water can contribute to a host of illnesses. You can purchase a kit to test for bacteria, lead, pesticides, nitrates, chlorine, hardness, and PH.

If you find out your water needs to be filtered, consider having a reverse osmosis water filter installed.

Update Your Detectors

Replacing those old smoke detectors with smart detectors that can sense smoke, radon, and carbon monoxide is probably a good idea. As a bonus, many new detectors also connect to your smartphone to give you updates and tell you a bunch of other pertinent information while you're away!

Take Pictures of Everything

As horrible as the idea is, your new house may get damaged by floods, fires, tornadoes, storm damage, etc.

The sad reality is that your insurance company is going to want to pay the least possible amount on any insurance claim you make in the event of a catastrophe. It pays to have documentation of how your house looked when you moved in.

Set Up Your Utilities

If the previous owners didn't leave you with all of this information, don't worry! Your neighbors have the same services you do (mostly). What better way to get to know them?

Paint

Avoid the fumes, the headache of moving and covering everything and paint your new house before your move in. If you have a newer build, you're in luck.

However, older houses will probably need every surface to be painted - ceilings, trim, walls, etc.

Make Emergency Plans and an Evacuation Kit

One of the first things you should do when you move in, particularly when you have kids, is to sit down and make an evacuation plan together.

How will you get out? Where will you meet? Make sure everyone knows how to make the right emergency calls. You also need to have the right tools necessary for a potential survival situation. Consider having on hand:

An emergency fire ladder

A water filter

An emergency radio

A survival kit that includes emergency rations and first aid products - enough for every person in your family.

Hopefully, you won't need any of these things. But if you do, they are better to have on hand.

Bring it Home

We hope you have a great time moving into your new house! Use these tips to make it your own and avoid some of the stressors of living in a new place.